Saturday, September 24, 2011

About the silent majority I speak

Written by: Ahmad Badawy 21 September 2011Translated by: Dr.Hend Khattab 24 September 2011Few days ago one of my friends who support El Baradei was being sarcastic about the silent mass and their right to participate in the elections describing the term “silent mass” as a placebo meaningless term, & he said diminishing the role & importance of the elections – the elections he knows that the cyberspace people won’t win it for sure – : “it’s a revolution ,, there’s nothing called the silent majority & I don’t care about the elections” , “how can you give a child a match and call it democracy !!”.

My friend attitude really disturbed me as he was expressing – without the usual equivocating – the contempt of a segment of activists – who call themselves democratic – for the Egyptian people & democracy itself , as he on one hand doesn’t recognize the existence of the silent majority or at least doesn’t respect their right to determine their own fate, And on the other hand he is not different than the people who call them sometimes the remnant of the old regime "Foloul" and other times the “couch” party.

As if it had appeared out of nowhere a new social class distinguishes itself from others as the finest, the brightest, the purest and most understanding class, which is the class of internet youth who think that it is entitled for them to have a monopoly on the fate of the country and despise the rest of the citizens which their luck made them share the same country with this class without sharing their cyberspace with them.

Although I’m supposed to be one of this outstanding class as I’m described as a blogger and one of the first and the most active political activists exist on the Facebook, Twitter & other social sites, but I find myself forced to reject the new chauvinist & superiority of the internet youth which made them think they have rights more than others just because they have an account on a social website, or because they have much free time to spend sitting on downtown café.

The truth which many of my activist friends forget - intentionally or due to lack of experience – is that we can’t by any chance ignore the opinion of the silent majority in ruling the country they live in, I personally can’t ignore the fact that my dad – who’s a lawyer & had a membership in the former ruling national party -, my mom – the employee who went with me one day to make a power of attorney to Dr. Ayman Nour to establish “El Ghad” party & despite that sometimes she believes that the power of attorney made for El Ghad party were actually fake - & my brother – who doesn’t care about anything in life but football & supporting Amr Mousa for presidency – belong to the silent majority.

I see the three of them as living models for the term “the silent mass” as they never had a blog or an account on Twitter & of course they are not from the chronic guests of the talk show programs leading the discussion about the future of their country, although most of the time they’re against my political activities but that didn’t stop mom & dad from participating in the marches of the real anger day – 28 Jan. not the one cloned many times after that with no success -, exposing to tears gas bombs & being in El Tahrir Square during the millions demonstrations & didn’t prevent my brother to stand in the people’s committees cursing the revolution, the rebels & accusing Wael Ghomiem of being Masonic without even knowing what the word means, then participating in the referendum to say “yes” to stability although he hasn’t find a steady job since he graduated years ago.

These are the silent mass, not necessarily insisting on a certain situation with or against the revolution, Muslim Brotherhood or liberals but they necessarily want Egypt to be a better nation for them and their children, they necessarily scared about Egypt even if they curse it sometimes, they necessarily are citizens with full legal capacity & rights, & no one no matter who he is or what’s his role should overcome them as if they don’t exist & it’s so silly & sometimes we can call it a crime to make fun of them or ignore their legal right to participate in managing their states affairs through the only available way “voting in the elections & choosing who rules the country” according to what determined by them not what we determine for them.

And if we admit their right to participate in determining the fate of our country, so before blaming the army or the Islamists we have to admit our mistakes before, during & after the revolution & our severe omission in arranging our priorities and choosing our revolutionary leadership rather than finding all this amount of climbers & ignorant people talking in the name of the revolution while they’ve no idea why did the revolution happen or how to rule a country which lead to adjournment of the silent majority for the revolution & worst than that that we blamed Tawfek Okasha (TV presenter who attacks the revolution all the time) for distorting the revolution image in the eyes of ordinary people although many of whom we consider as revolutionary symbols are more ignorant, superficial and impudence than Tawfek Okasha, & we didn’t try to correct our mistakes but we’re satisfied by blaming others and exonerate ourselves.

Dear activist, the revolution was made to return to the people their right to determine their fate without any guardianship, & it wasn’t made to take the power from Mubarak & give it to you and your friends on Facebook.Dear activist, it’s not a privilege that you participated in the revolution, you’re just of the millions of Egyptians who participated also, it’s not a privilege that you have an account on Twitter so you can give us a headache day & night saying that the revolution succeeded because they listened to you & it failed when it left you alone in El Tahrir square, if you owned a better point of view, influence or logic people would listen to you.

Dear activist, you’re not more concerned about the future of Egypt than the rest of the Egyptians, & your free time which you spend on the internet doesn’t give you an advantage than others to demand rights for yourself over others' rights

Dear activist, the revolution was made for freedom, democracy & social justice, so if you caught yourself despising others' right to determine their fate or describing them as ignorant or naive or demanding prevention of some people’s rights because they’re not qualified to use it, then you should know that you’re the naive, ignorant and unqualified to have the authority to determine the fate of others.

Dear activist, the revolution was made for democracy, so if you made the revolution above the democracy, you should expect that the coming revolution will be against you.
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